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My Fast Thinking article

I’ve had a HELL of a week. The day I was leaving Melbourne I discovered TPN was having major technical issues and it’s just been one thing after another this week. Database errors, sites hacked, you name it. And as TPN is still between proper IT support, it’s KILLING me. I’ve been trying to sign a deal with a Melbourne-based IT company since the beginning of December and it’s just dragging on and on and on.

And TPG are dicking around with the setup of my broadband here. I filled out their online order form on Monday morning this week and today they tell me it’ll be 3 – 5 working days…. from today. So that’s the end of next week.

What made me laugh most was on Monday when the guy from Telstra had to come to my house… TO MY HOUSE… WHERE MY WIFE SLEEPS… WHERE MY CHILDREN PLAY WITH THEIR TOYS… TO MY HOUSE…. (a little Godfather Part Two reference there, couldn’t resist)… to connect my phone line. I watched as this guy knelt down in front of my house, opened up a manhole, and TWISTED TWO WIRES TOGETHER. It’s 2008! WHAT THE HELL?!? I asked him “why do you have to come all the way here to connect my phone, can’t they just push a button on a computer somewhere?”

He replied “well they do that but someone needs to make the physical connection.”

“But”, I asked, perplexed, “the last tenants had a phone with Telstra, can’t you just say “oh ok now THIS person has the phone at that address?”

Apparently not. What the HELL Telstra? This is the level of sophistication of your network in 2008? A guy twisting two wires together? We’re all screwed.

Ah well. Here’s a link to an article I wrote months ago (that’s my excuse if it’s woefully out of date) which has just been printed on some dead trees for Fast Thinking magazine. Hope you like it. WARNING: THIS ARTICLE CONTAINS SOME BITCHIN’ ALLITERATION AND REFERENCES TO SUPERMAN.

The exchanges here are screwed. Half of them need to be completely scrapped and rebuilt from the ground up. A great example is the Ashgrove exchange. Its what, 5 minutes out of the CBD at most, and it is so full that competing telco’s are actually STEALING ports inside it from other people. There is no ADSL2, and the ADSL1 support is at best, woeful. And this is inner-city. Its crazy crazy stuff.

Anyhow, youre up here now, when are we catching up? Or were you planning on moving to my city and not saying hi :p

There is 1,692 km, about 20 hours 53 mins from Melbourne to Brisbane. It’s like crossing Europe. It’s really funny when you get in a car and there’s “only” 3 days to get somewhere. Looking from my perspective.

If you could find that TPG was bad on Twitter why did you go with them? Is there only one company is Brisbane? If not, PR people at TPG don’t really have to pay attention to Twitter. You chose them anyway, right?

Yeah Raf, Australia’s a big place. I laugh when I speak to my friends in Edinburgh and they talk about Glasgow being so far away. We drive that far for breakfast on a Saturday morning just for a treat.

I signed up with TPG before I got the negative feedback on Twitter. They were one of only a couple of ISPs delivering ADSL2+ plans to my house and the plans looked reasonable. I think any PR person who doesn’t pay attention to what’s being said about their company (or their clients) online is negligent. The typical twitterer may not be very influential but someone who follows them might be. I remember a comment Scoble made a few years ago, about how he only had 4000 readers to his blog, but one of them was a tech journo for the Washington Post who had a million readers. Ideas are slippery.